Syria has liberated Palmyra from ISIS, restoring a gem of ancient civilization to its rightful owners in what's being acknowledged even by the pro-Western Syrian Observatory for Human Rights as the biggest defeat for ISIS since the declaration of its caliphate in Syria and Iraq in spring 2014.
That this archaeological crown of ancient Rome - and therefore, of ancient Western civilization - was delivered on Easter Sunday thanks largely to intensive air support from the great defender of Eastern Christianity (Russia) is a significant moral and morale boost to the Axis of Fatima, whose crusade to reestablish a multi-sectarian secular society in Syria is likely to not merely continue, but only accelerate onward to the next major objective, likely the lifting of the terror group's siege of Deir Ez-Zour.
Western silence, unsurprisingly, has been glaring - and quite revealing. As Putin congratulates Assad on Palmyra's recapture, the West might be moping even more about its failed "regime change" gambit.
A Syrian official suggests to American neo-nationalist website Breitbart that Washington actually has no choice now but to cooperate with Damascus to defeat and destroy ISIS within Syria.
But the US may now be more preoccupied with ISIS in Iraq, as the coalition operation to liberate Mosul gets underway (Iraq's second-largest city, whose fall in June 2014 heralded the caliphate's arrival as a significant territorial entity spanning the two countries).
Neither the Washington-led coalition in Iraq nor the Moscow-led alliance in Syria would want to get bogged down in their respective campaigns against ISIS while the other makes gains. This great power competition could be just what's needed to hasten the eventual reunification and reconstitution of both states.
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